God

I was in a meeting. The topic was God.

“My meditation has messed up my prayer. I don’t believe that God is ‘out there’ anymore. When I first came in, I didn’t even believe in God. Not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t know how. So my first job was to shape-shift this ‘God-concept’ from some punitive fellow living in the clouds to a compassionate figure-head with the ability to google-map me and then actually do something about a well-worded request, provided it wasn’t too self-seeking of course. Like a leader knowing a thing or two about empowerment, only he didn’t make me nervous when he walked into the room.”

Judging by the anxious stares, I sensed I was being I was being a bit reckless with an important concept. Like when you’re talking with your hands while holding a baby or an over-priced urn – no-one’s listening for anything but the fall.

“Sometimes I’d even pray for stuff like a job I wanted, and I’d have it all couched up in good intentions. I figured a well-worded pitch would draw God’s attention to the ROI and distract him from my real concern: money for me.”

“Now I believe I am God,” I continued.
Hands were twitching, oh God, the baby’s in the air!
“I mean, you’re God too,” I hastily assured. “The tree’s God. Everything’s God . . . ”
I may as well go down with the ship.
“. . . and we’re all perfect. There’s nothing to ‘fix’. We arrived in mint condition, delivered first class by ‘Universe Express’, Nothing can change that, and if we believe otherwise, then it’s just our thinking that needs fixing. We laid down these sound-tracks, then played them for decades, no wonder we know the words by heart. Raised in a dysfunctional household by damaged parents, I was abused, neglected and loved to the best of their abilities. There are a lot of negative tapes playing, no surprise. But it doesn’t make it true.”

“I’m trying to unlearn, to go back. To what? My original self. Which means I can’t actually ‘go back’ because I’m already there. That pure, untarnished ‘me’ never left. How could it? It just got buried under all the crap I got to ‘thinking’. I can’t rewind all the tapes, but when I live from that place, they start to stop playing. And that place, that me? That’s where God is. That’s what God is. So I can no longer talk to ‘Him’ as though ‘He’s out there’ or ‘in Heaven’. No. It’s in me, as me. I can’t really pray to that, I have to listen to that.”

I sit there in the confused silence, wanting so badly for everyone to understand what I’m saying. Not because it’s brilliant or unique, but because I’m grappling with it too.